It has been a long-standing question whether momentum space integral equations of the Faddeev-type are applicable to reactions of three charged particles, in particular above the three-body threshold. The presence of long-range Coulomb forces has been thought to give rise to such severe singularities in their kernels that the latter may lack the compactness property known to exist in the case of purely short-range interactions. Employing the rigorously equivalent formulation in terms of an effective-two-body theory, we have proved in a preceding paper [Phys. Rev. C 61, 064006 (2000)] that, for all energies, the nondiagonal kernels occurring in the integral equations that determine the transition amplitudes for all binary collision processes, possess on and off the energy shell only integrable singularities, provided all three particles have charges of the same sign, i.e., all Coulomb interactions are repulsive. In the present paper we prove that, for particles with charges of equal sign, the diagonal kernels, in contrast, possess one, but only one, nonintegrable singularity. The latter can, however, be isolated explicitly and dealt with in a well-defined manner. Taken together these results imply that modified integral equations can be formulated, with kernels that become compact after a few iterations. This concludes the proof that standard solution methods can be used for the calculation of all binary [i.e., (in)elastic and rearrangement] amplitudes by means of momentum space integral equations of the effective-two-body-type.

• Received 21 August 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.63.044005